Best AntiVirus Software and Is It Worth It?

[pongrules]

I absolutely hated Symantec which took a crap on me when a virus hit it and made it go whacky. Once bitten twice shy, I won't go back to it. I want to buy the software, so please, no suggestions on the free stuff. What are your opinions and experiences with anti-virus software? And is there a program that's not such a damned resource hog?

 

[funkyhitman]

Yeah I hated symantec too. It didn't catch as much as this bad boy does:

Kaspersky - One of the best I have ever used.

Don't buy from the site though, it's overpriced. You can get an OEM version for peanuts...at least you can in the UK. Where do you live?

 

[hubbardt]

I got rid of Symantec too. Too much of a resource hog and it started blocking me randomly from websites 8O

Try Avast! or AVG. Both are free and very resource light.

 

[funkyhitman]

I got rid of Symantec too. Too much of a resource hog and it started blocking me randomly from websites 8O

Try Avast! or AVG. Both are free and very resource light.

I guess you didn't read his request of no free software. He wants to pay for it...which I totally agree with. Although Avast and AVG are the best free solutions, they don't have the advanced capabilities you get with paid software so they won't catch as many viruses and considering I picked up Kaspersky security suite OEM (which does more than the stand alone anti virus) for £13.81 (AUS$33.47) I say it's worth it.

Thanks for your input though, I'm sure many people will be delighted with the free choices.

 

[hubbardt]

Oooops !
Didn't read the post properly

 

[funkyhitman]

Hehe no worries. I use AVG on my laptop and it is very good.

 

[pongrules]

AVG does have a version you can purchase, but I'm not sure how it stacks up against other software, and I'm not sure how much better the paid version is than the free version. I've heard good things about a lot of them, but I've heard almost as much negative things about all of them. The only one I know I don't want to get is Symantec. I also want the ability to turn off the anti-virus program when I need to.

P.S. I live in the states, Denver, Colorado.

 

[funkyhitman]

Well Kaspersky does allow you to turn it off very easily. You can either 'Pause Protection' or 'Exit' the entire program by right clicking the taskbar icon and selecting the command you want.

It also runs very nicely in the background, scanning files all the time (which you can disable) and when you are copying or moving files around it will scan them and alert you if it finds a virus or adware etc. I found this out when moving files to another hard drive. Obviously you don't want to move nasty files to it so whilst I was moving them over Kaspersky intercepted the file and asked me what I wanted to do.

I'd suggest downloading the trial and see if you like it.

 

[pongrules]

Thanks for the reponse. Just because I'm too lazy to research it right now, can you tell me if Kapersky has an anti-spyware program built into it? Many Anti-Virus programs do, but they're not as good at blocking and removing spyware as programs like Spy Sweeper.

 

[funkyhitman]

It offers protection from spyware, adware and other potentially hostile programs.

I use Spybot search and destroy and ad-aware which mostly find tracking cookies but Kaspersky often finds spy-ware in software and things.

Ad-aware used to find loads of spyware and not just cookies on my system...I think this was when I was using Symantec! Since using Kaspersky Ad-aware and Spybot only really find tracking cookies...so that must mean that Kaspersky intercepts all the proper spyware!

This seems to show that Kaspersky beats both spysweeper and ad-aware:

http://usa.kaspersky.com/threats/spyware.php

Kaspersky doesn't find tracking cookies and that kind of thing that spyware scanners do.

Kaspersky is just great, such a step up from Symantec. I love it so much.

 

[pongrules]

Interesting link, thank you. I looked up the products for home use and I have three questions for you.

One, do you need the version with a firewall if your router has one and the one for WindowsXP is also on? Just trying to find the most cost-effective version.

Two, does the anti-spyware program block spyware before it gets to your computer?

Three, how is the program on resources? I don't like programs that are resource hogs or that slow down my machine.

 

[funkyhitman]

Interesting link, thank you. I looked up the products for home use and I have three questions for you.

One, do you need the version with a firewall if your router has one and the one for WindowsXP is also on? Just trying to find the most cost-effective version.

I'm not the best person to ask about that. I do know that WinXP firewall is pretty basic so the Kaspersky one might be better as it has anti-hacker abilities (this is on the internet security suite).

Two, does the anti-spyware program block spyware before it gets to your computer?.

I'm not entirely sure. I know if you click on a link in a web page then it will alert you to the threat if it is infected with something and it will automatically delete it i think. If you are downloading an a file such as a zip then I don't think Kaspersky detects anything until it's on your computer. I'm really not too sure, sorry. You'll have to do some research on that.

Three, how is the program on resources? I don't like programs that are resource hogs or that slow down my machine.

I never notice it running in the background. I just looked at it's memory usage in processes and it's 4,588 K which is very good isn't it? CPU usage remains at 0-1% so it doesn't use much when running in the background.

When you ask it to scan your computer, my cpu usage fluctuates all over the place and mem usage increases quite fast but then goes back down. It all depends on your system though as to how much of a performance hit you get when carrying out other tasks whilst scanning doesn't it?

I remember Symantec was awful when scanning. I couldn't do anything else at all without dramatic slowdowns but Kaspersky allows me to continue other tasks but I usually let the scan run when i'm not using the computer or do very simple tasks so I think you need to try it out for yourself before you buy. It might act differently on your computer, I don't know.